Week 2 - POST

For my side business, I may have what Li & Bernoff call "groundswell approach avoidance syndrome (2011)." I have had the business for about five years and considered posting a blog since the beginning. I have not gotten very far, but it has been in the back of my mind the entire time. For the T in post, I will consider writing a blog for my wedding makeup business. I have a small number of customers and an even smaller amount of data, but I think this exercise will still be useful.

P - People. My customers are primarily finding me through a search engine such as Google. I have data that shows that there is hardly any traffic directed to my site through sites like Yelp. From getting to know my customers on a personal basis, I know that they are Joiners. Nearly all of my customers have Facebook profiles and I have interacted with several of them through Facebook after working with them, but almost never before. Though I have been contacted through social media by prospective customers, they are rarely my target market and almost never end up being a client.

During the majority of my first meetings with my customer, Pinterest comes up and becomes part of the conversation. My demographic overwhelmingly uses Pinterest to gather ideas, store them in one location and share them. They share their wedding boards with their family, wedding party members and, in my case, vendors.

This would lead me to believe that my customers are Joiners and Collectors. They join and participate in Facebook and Pinterest. I have had a few reviews posted here and there, but my clients do not fit the profile of critics nor have I known them to be creators. From personal observation of my clients and how they interact with social media, they do not tend to fit the profile of conversationalists, either.

O - Objectives. By far and large, my best clients are referrals. Most of these referrals are someone who has been in a wedding where the bride was a client of mine. A large portion of these utilized my services as a member of the wedding party while others simply observed. In all cases, motivated my past clients would be an excellent blog objective. It would be great to motivate not just brides, but the wedding party members, mothers and other people that I work with during a typical job. Not all of the bridesmaids will go on to be brides (some are already married, live out of state, etc.) but all the people I come into contact with will know a bride or wedding party at some point in the future.

S - Strategy. This pivots directly from my objective. More word of mouth from my clients will pay dividends in recurring business over time. I already get a good amount of referrals from brides, but the mothers and other members of the bridal party who do not interact with me as much do not have the same incentive to talk about my business or refer to me to new brides or wedding parties. Engaging them with a blog may be a way to grow what is typically a passing relationship into a lasting source of referrals.

Image by Sara Salkeld.

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies (Expanded and rev. ed.). Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press.